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Welcome to the Composition:Today New Music Concert Listings.
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An unmissable concert! It has been a while since the SCO last premiered a work from its old friend, the Master of the Queen’s Music. With Knussen directing (he is a passionate devotee) this will be special. No less remarkable is the opportunity to hear Serkin play the Bartók. A wonderful concerto with Hungarian folk influences vying with Wagner’s Tristan, hints of jazz and an evocation of night music in what amounts to a passionate and joy-filled love song to his wife. Stravinsky closes the evening powerfully and grandly with his symphony.

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies on his new work for the Orchestra:
"In the late ‘eighties, as composer in residence to the SCO, I was commissioned to write my ten Strathclyde Concertos for the Orchestra. This involved writing for and working with the leaders of each section, and conducting performances of these works not only in Scotland, but also in Europe and America.

It is a great privilege, with this history, to be invited to write a work for the SCO’s fortieth birthday, as a vote of thanks for a wonderful musical experience with them in the past, and also as a vote of confidence in their glorious future."

Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem interweaves the poetry of Wilfred Owen with the words of the Requiem Mass in a deeply moving and powerful work. Written for the consecration of Coventry Cathedral after its destruction in the Second World War, this great work remains as relevant today as ever. Semyon Bychkov conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Chorus and superb soloists in a performance of the work in Britten’s 100th anniversary year, on Remembrance Sunday and in an iconic building whose association with remembrance goes back nearly a century.

New Dots presents an informal evening of world premieres performed by London based new music specialists, the Octandre Ensemble. Performing six newly commissioned musical works by some of the best emerging composition talent in the country, the concert will also feature talks from the composers about their work, giving the audience a unique insight into their creative process, and the collaboration between performer and composer

British master Robin Holloway’s In China, written in 2012, receives its UK premiere at Maida Vale Studios conducted by Garry Walker. In September 2011, Holloway was invited to explore China with four other composers, to be inspired and write a new orchestral piece embodying his responses to the sensory and cultural experiences there. Holloway particularly responded to the extraordinary landscapes he witnessed on this journey and describes his new work as ‘extremely direct’, to reflect the vastness of Chinese accomplishments such as the skyscrapers in Beijing, the Great Wall and the Terracotta Warriors Army. He also took inspiration from the ethnic music and the rhythmic quality of the sound of the Chinese language he heard.

Emily Howard’s Solar precedes this; a work which encapsulates the sun. Howard describes the inspiration taken from this object of devotion, with its strong solar magnetic field, reflected in her music by bursting energy on the surface, but always with a slow-burning and intense core.

This concert also features exciting new compositions by Sound and Music Embedded composers Tom Coult, Aaron Holloway-Nahum and Benjamin Oliver, who continue their residency with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

This concert will be recorded for future broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s Hear and Now.

“My subject is war, and the pity of war.” Benjamin Britten took sacred words and the poetry of the First World War, and combined them into a masterpiece that echoes down the decades: bold, poetic, and devastatingly emotional. One week before Britten’s hundredth birthday, Peter Oundjian, three great soloists, and our two superb choruses come together in this unique commemorative performance of the War Requiem.

Based on the 'Strange Loop' paradigm as described by Douglas Hofstadter in his book Gödel Escher Bach. Harry Whalley's 'Entangled Music' is a major work for large chamber ensemble with this ideas at its core.

“How to describe it? An astonishing work of art that has become a cult wherever it is played. One of the first great masterpieces of the C21st.”
Sir Simon Rattle

Premiered in 2000 and now receiving its much-awaited UK premiere performance at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Haas’ in vain is an extraordinary work of contradictions and juxtapositions, exploring a heightened sensory world where darkness and light coincide. Written in protest to the rise of the far-right Freedom Party in the 1999 Austrian elections, in vain hints at a frightening world where dark, unnatural forces are at work. As familiar harmonies meet microtonal systems, Haas evokes an otherworldly realm that oscillates between the past and the present, between clarity and dystopia. Performed partly in complete darkness, in vain transforms the concert hall into a mysterious new landscape, where you must trust your ears and relinquish your sight.

The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), the nation’s premier orchestra dedicated exclusively to commissioning, performing, and recording new orchestral music, presents a one-night only concert performance of Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein’s Four Saints in Three Acts (1928). An abstruse modernist opera sans plot or formal structure, Four Saints is the perfect way for the unflagging BMOP orchestra to kick-start the new season.

WHAT: NEA JAZZ MASTER CHICO HAMILTON @ DROM
In yet another strong showing by this venerable drummer, 92 year-old percussionist and band leader Foreststorn “Chico” Hamilton celebrates his working life in a trio of concerts – EUPHORIC: Celebrating the Life & Music of Chico Hamilton. Known for fashioning finely textured sounds with small ensembles, Chico leads his long-time working group Euphoria featuring Nick Demopoulos (guitar), Paul Ramsey (bass), Evan Schwam (flute + reeds), Mayu Saeki (flute), and Jeremy Carlstedt (drums + percussion) as well as special featured guests TBA. Program includes some new original material as well as works off of Chico’s latest vivacious albums: Revelation and Euphoric (Joyous Shout!). Saluted by the Kennedy Center as a "Living Jazz Legend", and appointed to the President’s Council on the Arts, this NEA Jazz Master is considered one of the most important living jazz artists and composers. According to Jazz Improv NY, “he sounds more creative and artistic than ever.”

In honor of the 92 year-old percussionist and band leader, his long-time working group Euphoria continues his legacy with a monthly concert series at DROM starting Sunday, November 17th with special featured guests TBA.

Known for fashioning finely textured sounds with small ensembles, the program includes some new original material off of Chico’s forthcoming album (Release Date 2014) as well as works off of Chico’s latest vivacious albums: Revelation and Euphoric (Joyous Shout!).

Saluted by the Kennedy Center as a "Living Jazz Legend", and appointed to the President’s Council on the Arts, this NEA Jazz Master is considered one of the most important living jazz artists and composers. According to Jazz Improv NY, “he sounds more creative and artistic than ever.”

In this special concert performance and recording for BBC Radio 3, members of the BBC SSO join forces with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland's Junior Conservatoire to perform one of Britten's most colourful and engaging works, Noye's Fludde. Offering the audience the chance to join in with several congregational hymns, Britten's telling of Noah and the Ark is a celebration of music-making by young people, amateurs and professionals. Two of the UK's finest young professional singers, Jennifer Johnston and Leigh Melrose play the leading roles and the Voice of God is portrayed by the celebrated Scottish actress, Siobhan Redmond.

The aerial acrobatics of two eagles, soaring and tumbling in the air, inspired Ned Rorem’s Eagles, and its bright, athletic energy also permeates David Diamond’s Rounds. John Adams’ clarinet concerto, Gnarly Buttons, is an affectionate tribute to his clarinettist father. Hear it next to Roy Harris’ richly humanistic Ninth Symphony.

The dominant figure in British musical life for a large part of the twentieth century, Benjamin Britten was one of the world's most prolific composers. Although in many ways an outsider figure, his extraordinary fluency and versatility meant that his distinctive voice was heard in opera houses, concert halls, theatres, cathedrals and schools, as well as on radio and in film.

This concert marks Britten's centenary with an exploration of his unique soundworld, with two of his best-loved operas and one of his most original and compelling orchestral works, the Sinfonia da Requiem.

The BBC Philharmonic is joined by broadcaster Stephen Johnson for this accessible guide to Britten's music, including live orchestral extracts, before a complete performance of all three works.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013 at SATYAGRAHAEnglish National OperaLondon Coliseum United Kingdom

ENO

A huge success at its London premiere in 2007 and at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, the following year, Philip Glass's operatic masterpiece returns to ENO. Satyagraha is a mesmerising musical meditation on Mahatma Gandhi's early years in South Africa and his spiritual progress towards the concept of nonviolent protest.

Performances: 20th Nov-8th Dec

One of the most visually spectacular productions of recent decades, Satyagraha is instilled with theatrical flair by the award-winning director designer partnership of Improbable's Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch.

Returning to the roles they created in 2007 and reprised in 2009 are Alan Oke as Gandhi and Janis Kelly as Mrs Naidoo. Satyagraha is conducted by Stuart Stratford.

A collaboration with Improbable. Co-produced by ENO and the Metropolitan Opera, New York

Disregarding the more traditional guitar programmes that have been in currency for many years, The Julian Bream Trust, which has been set up to support young musicians, seeks to explore a largely different repertoire.
This particular concert has the unusual inclusion of two distinguished world premières by Harrison Birtwistle and Leo Brouwer.

Join some of LSO Discovery’s younger participants as they explore Benjamin Britten’s Friday Afternoons, a set of twelve songs written for school children. Part of a national initiative by Aldeburgh Music to encourage as many young people as possible to sing the songs on what would have been Britten’s 100th birthday.

The short and witty songs were written for the composer’s schoolmaster brother and the boys of Clive House preparatory school, Prestatyn – a school in which choir practice and singing lessons regularly took place on a Friday afternoon.

Britten’s originality never blazed more brightly than when it was most firmly rooted in the English choral tradition. One hundred years to the day since Britten was born, Simon Halsey directs the CBSO’s choruses in some of Britten’s most striking inspirations, including the inimitable Rejoice in the Lamb and the Hymn to St Cecilia on St Cecilia’s Day no less: music to leave you stirred, beguiled and thoroughly entertained.

For children of all ages, was there ever a better musical guide than Benjamin Britten? Whether playing, singing or listening to his pieces, he unlocks the lid of the classical music treasure chest. The BBC Symphony Orchestra presents a selection of his wonderful music for young people in a one hour concert for all the family.

Featuring his last ever piece (written for Suffolk schoolchildren), some fizzing arrangements of Rossini tunes and his famous guide to the family of orchestral instruments, the concert also includes four brand new choral songs written for the Britten centenary by professional and talented teenage composers. What better way to celebrate the music of the talented Suffolk schoolboy who turned out to be one of best and most famous of all English composers?

Melodia Women’s Choir of NYC led by Artistic Director Cynthia Powell opens its eleventh season with 'Visions of Peace,' a bold and irrepressible holiday program centered on a Melodia reprise performance of Benjamin Britten’s “A Ceremony of Carols.” Composed for women's voices and harp in 1942, “A Ceremony of Carols” is one of Britten’s most beloved works, resonant for its purity of spirit and sense of hope and joy. It is a fitting tribute to mark the centenary of the English composer, born on November 22, 1913, and celebrated around the world through Britten 100 events.

In atmospheric complement to Britten’s piece, “Seven Part-Songs for Female Voices and Strings,” by Gustav Holst (1874-1934) is an ethereal and deeply haunting work set to the poetry of Robert Bridges (1844-1930). In perfect counterpoint is Paul Csonka’s (1905-1995) sensuous Spanish-language piece “Concierto de Navidad,” rarely performed settings of three Spanish Christmas carols sparked by the rhythms of Cuba.

“This concert is eclectic, but will come together beautifully,” said Powell. “Holst is a natural to pair with Britten - they both had a profound appreciation for great poetry. And Paul Csonka’s ‘Concierto de Navidad’ is a gem that will lead into several popular tunes in jazz samba style, arranged for our instrumental forces.”

Albert Herring is the brightest, breeziest and wittiest of all Britten’s operas. A delightful chamber piece that follows the fortunes of down-trodden young simpleton Albert Herring, who is put forward by the grotesque village worthies to be ‘King of May’ because the local girls have all disgraced themselves. Young lovers Sid and Nancy spike his drink on May Day and enjoy the chaos that ensues, when he escapes humiliation and his mother’s clutches. Britten expert Steuart Bedford conducts a fabulous cast, including Christine Brewer as Lady Billows, Gillian Keith as Miss Wordsworth, Roderick Williams as Mr Gedge and rising star Andrew Staples as Albert himself.

Brown Paper Tickets at www.melodiawomenschoir.org or at (800) 838-3006

Melodia Women’s Choir of NYC led by Artistic Director Cynthia Powell opens its eleventh season with 'Visions of Peace,' a bold and irrepressible holiday program centered on a Melodia reprise performance of Benjamin Britten’s “A Ceremony of Carols.” Composed for women's voices and harp in 1942, “A Ceremony of Carols” is one of Britten’s most beloved works, resonant for its purity of spirit and sense of hope and joy. It is a fitting tribute to mark the centenary of the English composer, born on November 22, 1913, and celebrated around the world through Britten 100 events.

In atmospheric complement to Britten’s piece, “Seven Part-Songs for Female Voices and Strings,” by Gustav Holst (1874-1934) is an ethereal and deeply haunting work set to the poetry of Robert Bridges (1844-1930). In perfect counterpoint is Paul Csonka’s (1905-1995) sensuous Spanish-language piece “Concierto de Navidad,” rarely performed settings of three Spanish Christmas carols sparked by the rhythms of Cuba.

“This concert is eclectic, but will come together beautifully,” said Powell. “Holst is a natural to pair with Britten - they both had a profound appreciation for great poetry. And Paul Csonka’s ‘Concierto de Navidad’ is a gem that will lead into several popular tunes in jazz samba style, arranged for our instrumental forces.”

Both the Gildas Quartet and Joseph Houston gave memorable performances in the PLG New Year Series 2013 which led to outstanding press reviews: ‘The gifted Gildas Quartet’ (The Times). ‘…liquid beauty … vividly projected.’ (Daily Telegraph on Joseph Houston).
Together, they present an exquisitely-balanced programme of 19th-century classical and 20th-century romantic music, gently set off by the world première of Thomas Simakus’ latest set of piano miniatures.

The New Town Concert Society fill a long-standing gap in their programme as the Belcea Quartet, now the leading British based quartet of their generation, make their first appearance as part of the 2013/14 season. They will come straight from the centenary Britten weekend at Aldeburgh to play Britten’s last string quartet, flanked by two of his favourite composers, Haydn and Mozart.

Commissioned by the Norway’s Nidaros Cathedral Girls' Choir for their 20th anniversary, this moving Requiem features jazz trumpeter Arve Henriksen with organ, girls’ choir and community choir. Loosely based on the requiem mass, Andrew Smith’s piece is a reflection on the tragic massacre of 22 July 2011 on Utøya in Norway. The first half will feature a duo from Arve Henriksen and keyboard player Ståle Storløkken.

Sound And Music and Tusk Music are delighted to announce this tour of Vicki Bennett’s film-collage-as-visual-score Notations, to be soundtracked by a unique combination of leading improvising artists at each event.

Notations has been created by Vicki from hundreds of different film clips, where the content conceptually or literally portrays different kinds of ‘gestures’ or ‘instructions’ to be read by the improvising artists on stage as a visual score.

To soundtrack Notations, an impressive international cast of improvisers has been recruited and, as each show features a different combination of artists, every performance will be completely unique. The artists involved are Bill Orcutt, Rhodri Davies, M.C. Schmidt (Matmos), Philip Jeck, Jaap Blonk, Steve Noble, Wobbly, Mark Sanders, Tomomi Adachi, Yoni Silver and Jennifer Walshe.

Vibrant, colourful, and buzzing with energy: the American minimalist music of John Adams and Steve Reich has swept through contemporary culture like a blast of pure oxygen.

But there’s nothing minimalist about its emotional power, and in this life-affirming programme directed by the inspirational Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto, it’s the perfect complement to two of Bach’s most tuneful masterpieces. Three masters speak to each other across three centuries: this is music to refresh heart and soul in equal measure.

Bold, boisterous and bags of fun, Captain Blood’s Revenge combines adventure, mystery and a bit of spookiness in a tale of buccaneering high jinks that we can all join in.

As if Salty Sue doesn’t have enough to cope with as landlady of The Blasted Bilge Rat, a rowdy harbourside inn, her daughter Pegatty is a real piratical handful and Pegatty’s father, the fearsome former pirate Billy Bone, has vanished on a dangerous quest. No wonder Sue would rather swap the high seas for the high Cs in her secret ambition to be a singer. The rollicking regulars at Sue’s inn include a band of mariner musicians, an evil-looking sailor with a knife in his back – and us, the audience.

Music by Lynne Plowman

Libretto by Martin Riley

Performances for Schools
As part of our Performances for Schools programme this autumn, Captain Blood's Revenge will be touring across the country to give a special dedicated performance to pupils in years 3 & 4. Beginning at Glyndebourne on 28 & 29th November, the production will move on to the Norwich Playhouse, the Marlowe Studio in Canterbury, The Stables in Milton Keynes and The New Cygnet Theatre in Exeter.

A 60th birthday celebration of film composer Patrick Doyle, featuring a selection of his film scores, including Hamlet, Henry V, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Eragon, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and the world premiere of his score for Jack Ryan.

Iconic movie soundtracks performed in celebration of Patrick Doyle’s 60th year as one of the UK’s most successful film composers – live, up close and more exhilarating than ever before.

Sunday, December 1st 2013 at 3:00 PM, followed by a wine reception The Dimenna Center, Benzaquen Hall (between 9th & 10th Avenue), NYC Monday, December 2nd 2013 7pm – ArtBeat (repeat of program) lecture-demonstration at 6pm William Paterson University 300 Pompton Road, Wayne, NJ, FREE
Third annual festival produced by Composers Concordance (“enterprising new music organization” - NYTimes) has an innovative approach: each concert focuses on a specific timbre.
The festival opener, entitled 'ArtBeat' features percussion instruments in a program with 4-time Grammy winner Glen Velez, as well as the acclaimed Lukas Ligeti and Peter Jarvis. It will held at DiMenna Center on December 1st at 3pm, followed by a reception. The repeat of the program at William Paterson University on December 2nd will include a pre-concert lecture demonstration on frame-drumming and overtone singing by Glen Velez.
In addition to the mono-timbral nature of each concert on the festival, a few of them, including ArtBeat have a collaborative-interdisciplinary nature.
ArtBeat includes original sculpture-percussion by Gorazd Poposki made specifically for this event.
Each percussionist will present a 20 - 25 minute solo set of their own repertoire. The percussionists will then join together to perform a suite written for them by Dan Cooper, Partick Grant, Milica Paranosic, Gene Pritsker and Zach Seely, featuring the sculpture-percussion instruments.
The instruments will be on the display at Gallery MC (www.GalleryMC.org), at 549 West 52nd Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues in NYC), November 16th - 31st.

The infectious Mexican rhythms of Copland’s El Salon Mexico entranced a generation of Americans, including Leonard Bernstein, whose Halil, for flute and orchestra, was composed in memory of an Israeli flautist killed in war. On a lighter note experience Walter Piston’s classic ballet, The Incredible Flutist, and Randall Thompson’s intrinsically rhythmic Second Symphony.

A visionary artist who probed deep into the human psyche, Michael Tippett sought to unite apparently conflicting styles and celebrate the vast energy of cultural diversity in his music.
Wigmore Hall’s Tippett Series marks the fifteenth anniversary of the composer’s death with a retrospective survey of works central to his creative development, opening with the Beethoven-inspired first string quartet and exploring the cantata Boyhood’s End, first performed at Morley College in 1943 by Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten.

Join the BBC Concert Orchestra, their Conductor Laureate Barry Wordsworth and BBC Radio 3 New Generation artist Kitty Whately as they celebrate the Great American Songbook.

Hear avant-garde composer, pianist, author and inventor George Antheil's ‘American' Symphony alongside Aaron Copland's popular suite from his music to Appalachian Spring and Sir Richard Rodney Bennett's orchestral version of the Lilliburlero Variations.

Kitty Whately joins the orchestra to perform favourites from the Great American Songbook including songs by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter and Jerome Kern from Carousel, The King and I, Kiss Me Kate and Show Boat.

The Guildhall School's series of exclusive performances by senior professors and their colleagues gives public, staff and students the opportunity to see some of the country's finest musicians perform in the stunning new Milton Court Concert Hall.

Conductor Joshua Weilerstein conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in a feast of all-American works from the twentieth century. The overture for Barber’s first work for orchestra, The School for a Scandal, reflecting Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s comic play, opens the concert with a flourish. Premiered in 1933, the work won Barber a Bearns Prize from Columbia University as well as instant national recognition.

Two giants of the American stage also feature here. Pianist Martin Roscoe joins the orchestra for Gershwin’s playful and melodious Piano Concerto, which was published just a year after Rhapsody in Blue, in 1925. The inimitable dances from Bernstein’s 1957 Broadway hit West Side Story complete the programme in style, broadcast live on BBC Radio 3.

“How to describe it? An astonishing work of art that has become a cult wherever it is played. One of the first great masterpieces of the C21st.”
Sir Simon Rattle

Premiered in 2000 and now receiving its much-awaited premiere in London, Haas’ in vain is an extraordinary work of contradictions and juxtapositions, exploring a heightened sensory world where darkness and light collide. Written in protest to the rise of the far-right Freedom Party in the 1999 Austrian elections, in vain hints at a frightening world where dark, unnatural forces are at work. As familiar harmonies meet microtonal systems, Haas evokes an otherworldly realm that oscillates between the past and the present, between clarity and dystopia. Performed partly in complete darkness, in vain transforms the concert hall into a mysterious new landscape, where you must trust your ears and relinquish your sight.

It's all about rhythm. Musical revolutions in Manchester have always started on the dancefloor, and whether it's the punchy latin rhythms of Turina's flamboyant ballet, or the young Thomas Adès These Premises Are Alarmed commissioned for the opening of The Bridgewater Hall, Juanjo Mena knows exactly how to get a party started.

John Adams blasts musical theory right out of the classroom in the outrageous Slonimsky's Earbox, percussion virtuoso Colin Currie performs a concerto by our very own HK "Nali" Gruber, and the BBC Philharmonic adventure through the bareback thrills of Ginastera's exuberant cowboy ballet. Hold tight: the future has never sounded so much fun.

Falling on the last weekend of Southbank Centre's year-long The Rest Is Noise festival, we bring their story bang up to date with four sets of brand new music from today's most cutting edge composers. Twelve world premieres include major London Sinfonietta commissions from Edmund Finnis and Francisco Coll, alongside UK premieres of works by Rebecca Saunders and Simon Steen-Andersen.

For more information: http://www.londonsinfonietta.org.uk/event/new-music-show

Pianist Aleck Karis presents a one-night only concert dedicated to late works of the iconoclastic composer Morton Feldman. As an extension of Karis’s latest album Wolpe, Feldman & Webern (Bridge Records), this performance casts the composer in a fresh light by showcasing music written by Feldman’s teacher, Stefan Wolpe, as well as Wolpe’s teacher, Anton Webern. Program opens with solo piano works including Feldman’s Piano and Palais de Mari juxtaposed with Wolpe’s Form, Form IV and Webern’s Piano Variations, culminating with Feldman’s Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello featuring special guest artists Curt Macomber (violin), Danielle Farina (viola) and Chris Finckel (cello).